Recently I’ve been doing a lot of resawing on my bandsaw. Resawing is a great way to get thin material for a project versus wasting away the material by simply running it through a thickness planer or purchasing it pre-thicknessed (which probably means it’s been sitting around for a while and is bowed or warped by the time you get it).

In episode No. 491 “Resawing options” I had shared different ways I know of to resaw thicker material, but I didn’t go into the details, especially when it came to my techniques on the bandsaw. And that’s what we’re doing on today’s show, talking about how I resaw and a few tips on what I do to get my bandsaw all set up for it.

Comments (8)

Hi Matt
Good to see your bandsaw being the centre of attention. I have the same Kreg fence and resaw accessory for my bandsaw and it is fantastic! Just wondering why you didn’t mention the blade tension release lever to de-tension the blade? I installed an after market Carter tension release on mine and use it all the time.
Anyway, thanks for another great video.
Cheers
John

I know Michael advocates for taking the time to setup a bandsaw just once in its lifetime. He feels there’s no need to do it over and over again, which I agree with for the most part.

In fact I’ve spent more time on setting this saw up than any other, based on his suggestions.

But his method of correcting for blade drift is by making sure the blade is centered on the wheel and then adjusting the wheel’s tracking versus adjusting the fence.

I think at the end of the day, both methods get you to the end result desired.

As for the blades not needing to be untensioned, I’m going to follow the manufacturer’s recommendations just to be safe. But I do like Michael’s suggestion of not needing to take the saw’s tension gauge to the full height.

I definitely think that a bandsaw’s tuning needs to be checked quite often.

I have seen two issues that will cause a bandsaw to not track
parallel to the miter slot. It is worth checking these two
things as they are very easy to check.

One is to make sure your bandsaw fence does not bend or flex with
any pressure you would normally put on it. I had a bandsaw with a Woodhaven fence that would just flex with pressure in spite of
being installed correctly and the screws were tightened etc.
Until I figured that out the saw would not track at all and was unusable for resaw. The quick fix was to put a clamp on the far side
of the fence and the issue was completely solved. After that the
saw worked perfectly.

The other issue I ran into recently was that the saw was again having
problems with a resaw. It turned out the be that my upper guide bearings had gotten out of adjustment and needed to be brought back into .004 inch from the blade. After that adjustment the worked great again.

But definitely check the fence for flex even if it is a new aftermarket fence. I think Woodhaven no longer sells the version
of the fence I was using.

As always, I enjoy your videos and look forward to each one. I really appreciate the effort you put in. But, I have to jump on Todd’s side on this one, and agree that the “adjust for drift” thing is hooey. I have a simple Grizzly 14″ bandsaw, and when I first got it, I had trouble resawing straight too. I finally changed the blade, and set it up per Michael Fortune’s step-by-step instruction, and got perfect straight fence results. I actually think 90% most people’s bandsaw resawing issues come from dull blades. People need to replace blades as soon as they start getting dull. And while I love the Woodslicer blades @ $30/pop, I bought a few $12 3tpi blades, and just switch them out if I see them getting dull. I’ve never had a problem after that. I keep this cool app on my iPad and refer to it whenever I suspect my saw is drifty… https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bandsaw-basics-from-fine-woodworking/id427807154?mt=8

At this point, it takes me almost the same amount of time to set up the blade as Michael describes as it does to do it by adjusting the fence. Short of obvious damage happening to my bandsaw, I’ll continue to do what I’m already familiar with LOL.